Livescore
RICHMOND, Va. — Austin Dillon’s Chevrolet sported a camouflage paint scheme in this weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Richmond Raceway. Not much was hidden about the No. 3 machine or its motives during the final lap of overtime; not after a systematic dispatching of Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin by brute force to score its driver’s first win in nearly two years.
After a brash display of offense-first driving, Dillon joined team owner and grandfather Richard Childress in playing some defense as they met the press at the end of the Cook Out 400. The damage control came in response to pointed criticism from Logano — who revved his No. 22 Ford angrily as he smoked past the No. 3 pit stall post-race — and from Hamlin, who bristled at the idea that Dillon “did what he had to do” — something he stated nearly verbatim in his winner’s press conference — to clinch a Cup Series Playoffs berth. That’s not counting the verdict from the court of public opinion with the fans, who throttled the No. 3 team’s celebration with boos from the grandstands.
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Part of Dillon’s defense was that his rivals would have acted similarly, had the roles been reversed.
“I’ve seen Denny and Joey make moves that have been running people up the track to win,” said Dillon, now a five-time winner in the Cup Series. “This is the first opportunity in two years for me to be able to get a win. I drove in there and kept all four tires turning across the start/finish line. To me, I’ve seen a lot of stuff over the years in NASCAR where people move people. It’s just part of our sport. You know what I mean? Remember when Joey said ‘short-track racing.’ He knows what it was. In your shoes, what would you do?”
What Dillon ultimately did will be entered in the Richmond track’s history books as one of its most controversial chapters. The tactics took some of the bloom off what was setting up to be a clean, rosy finish in regulation for the 34-year-old driver, who was leading at the end of a banner day until a late caution flag for a crash involving Ryan Preece and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. set up overtime. Dillon had been leading, but when he was outdueled by Logano on the final restart, desperation set in.
Dillon drove in deep into the final set of corners, turning Logano’s Ford sideways into the outside retaining wall then hooking the No. 11 Toyota of Hamlin into the wall after it eked ahead in that aftermath. Dillon then drove on unfettered to the checkered flag, but the sailing was about to get choppy.
A review of radio transmissions revealed that “wreck him” was part of the No. 3 team’s frantic communications to Dillon during that final span. Childress denied hearing any such directive from spotter Brandon Benesch, and Dillon said that he tuned out what he was hearing in his helmet in the mad scramble to the end — noting both the stakes and how full his hands were with the steering wheel.
“Dude, at that point I’m elbows up, holding the throttle down, just trying to get to the start/finish line literally,” Dillon said. “I am sideways off of (Turn) four ’cause I’m already three-quarters of the lane up the track, hammer the gas. I’m just looking at the start/finish line. That’s it. I ain’t hearing [expletive] at that point, you know? Your eyes turn red. You see red, you get to the end of the race.
“Daytona, last lap when I won there at the 500, your eyes see red. There’s one thing on your mind: get to the start/finish line first, period. No matter if anybody came on the radio, it doesn’t matter. Like, you have one job to do, it’s to get to the start/finish line first. That maybe can answer your question. A lot of people lose their jobs because they don’t get to the start/finish line first.”
Childress, the Hall of Famer with control over that employment, had his own defense.
“I don’t think anybody — I never heard it on our radio, unless somebody was making it up. I didn’t hear it. Did you?” Childress said, posing the question to No. 3 crew chief Justin Alexander, who also said he didn’t hear it. “Not on our No. 1 (radio) channel, No. 2 channel, no one said that. If you believe in everything you hear on the Internet, I’m not Santa Claus if it ever comes up. Probably somebody just saying it, put it in there.”
Pressed further about Benesch, Childress hedged, but approvingly so.
“I didn’t hear him, and I was on the radio with him,” Childress said. “We’ll see. If he did, he did a damn good job at it. He won the race.”
MORE: Updated Cup Series standings
Regardless of who said or heard what, Dillon cleaned out two of the sport’s top stars in an arcing 1-2 punch that would make a heavyweight prizefighter tip his gloves. That move will be debated for days, and Hamlin did it in real-time after a moment of reflection and a brief consultation with crew chief Chris Gabehart as he leaned up against his No. 11 Toyota post-race.
In his remarks, Hamlin said he knew a questionable move was coming from Dillon and acknowledged the stakes, but he also noted the lack of a deterrent for such last-lap antics. Dillon hadn’t led a lap all year until Sunday’s 400, and he caught lightning at Richmond to vault from 32nd in the Cup Series standings to now 13th on the provisional postseason grid.
“It’s tough, because this is what the young short-track racers see, and they think that this is OK because they watch the professionals on Sunday that are supposed to act like adults just do dumb (expletive),” said Hamlin. “And it’s just amazing that it’s allowed. I mean, I don’t fault him, because he’s completely desperate, right? He’s 30th in points. He jumps 20 spots in points, or whatever the hell it is. It’s, his season’s saved. Now, he’ll have to pay repercussions down the line for this, but it’s so worth it from his standpoint because there’s no guardrails or rules that say, ‘don’t do that.””
Logano’s critique was marked by fury and a scathing assessment of Dillon’s Cup Series tenure, now in its 11th full season.
“I beat him fair and square on the restart, and he just pulls a chicken— move,” Logano said, after noting that the win should be revoked. “He’s a piece of crap. The kid, he sucks. He’s sucked his whole career, and now he’s going to be in the playoffs and good for him, I guess.”
Those criticisms? That Dillon’s heard.
“It’s been rough the last two years,” Dillon said. “For me to see the front and race with two of the best guys in the sport and prove that I can do it when given the opportunity, it was hard for me not to go to, like, get upset in the car. I had to keep my [expletive] together, to tell you the truth. This stuff ain’t easy. I won championships in the Truck Series and Xfinity Series. I’m sure there’s many people out there that have wanted my head to get out of the 3 car for a long time. I’m fortunate I have a great family, great partners at RCR. When given that shot, you just got to take it.”
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